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Janet:

It's very simple. I created it using Windows Movie Maker which is a free Windows Tool. The images of the girl with amber eyes (they're actually blue but because I turned them into black and white nobody can tell it)  weren't free--I purchased them at shutterstock.com,but you can  take your own pictures and then the cost would be zero. The rest of the pictures, I took them myself.  I only purchased one video clip at shutterstock.com and the rest I shot them myself.

The actors were my sis Fernanda and and her boyfriend. We actually had a lot of fun shooting the pictures and  the movie clips. After I had all the material, I invested one afternoon putting it together and synchronizing the music. Presto!

If you're really interested, I can show you how to do it.

Kiss,

Gacela

I'm afraid we're making too much fuss about this issue. Mikira did ask permission and it was granted. We've all asked support  in different ways (leave a comment on Amazon, contribute  with votes on certain site, even supportive words when a member is going through bad time), which, technically, could be considered solicitation. So, let's not make the site so tight there  wouldn't be space to breathe. Let's keep the thing friendly. God, this is not the IRS!

If anybody feels some forum discussion is too much, just turn a blind eye towards it--anyway, Sol moderates all of them, which means that all will keep the spirit of the site. Nobody is forced to read a particular forum, anyway.

I wouldn't like to eliminate ALL kind of solicitation. It would mean I couldn't even ask for a favour. So, let's make ourselves a favour  and tone this conversation down. Kindly be reminded that we all need each other, and sooner or later, any of us will need some kind of help. We're a community, let's support each other.

Kiss

Gacela.

It's good you remove it. It was a totally unfair word of warning from an author who couldn't stand some candid criticism, and could have hurt the new member's reputation a lot.

TirzahLaughs, the prob with the simple Calibre conversion is that some symbols (even the quotation marks) can turn into weird stuff like squares or smiley faces. Also, I'm not sure if an Calibre is able to create an index using simple conversion. That's why I'm recommending the long route, which, to be honest, is only time consuming but it's amazingly simple.

Now, the simple solution is to hire somebody to do it for you. If Sol can do it, and if you don't want to get into further trouble, hire him.

Kiss,

Gacela.

I seconded Norm d'Plume when the button was suggested. My novel Amber Eyes is 40 chapters long. I have an average of 4 to 6 reviews per chapter, which comes to be 240. During my revision process, I want to keep track of the reviews I've already considered. Of course, you guys know we don't use each and every suggestion, however valuable. Even if I've discarded a suggestion, I want to know that I've already considered it. Sometimes, new reviewers start reviewing your novel right from chapter 1. The button is the  only way to tell new comments from old ones already considered.

Kiss,

Gacela.

Great job, Sol. The orange button is the most valuable enhancement.

Kiss

Gacela

I have not received reviews from free members even though I provided several, always telling them (the free members) they should reciprocate and actually start reviewing other people's work before expecting their own work to be reviewed.

I think that the way in which the previous site worked was pretty cool. Free member could review but not post their work. The biggest incentive to become a premium member was the ability to post your own work. I started as a free member, reviewing other people's work, but soon I became as premium member because I wanted to post my own work.

I think little has been gained by creating the Free group. As Sol said, most likely, free members who were not reviewing other writer's work and thus not getting reviews, would not become Premium members but leave the site. As I explained in another discussion where the contrary was being discussed--whether the point system was dead--I stated that the points system encourages review.

Kiss,

Gacela

Dear Shearluck:

Be very welcome to the site! My advise, select your genre and start reviewing other writer's work. Reciprocating is the secret here. Most writers reciprocate. About how to review, just be sincere and say what you think. Be respectful, though, even if you think something is worthless ("this works needs heavy rewriting" and "this work is crap" basically mean the same, but respect draws the line between them).

Don't be afraid to publish here, most of us are amateurs, and we are all learning from each other.

Kiss,

Gacela.

Janet provided a good example why we shouldn't start rating the content. Is soooo very easy to start exaggerating and lost focus. I agree that her kid should be taught that the F word is not a word proper for a 7th grader in particular and well educated people in general. However, asking him to remove straddle from his prose is a symptom of how much people can exaggerate and try to cover themselves "just in case", moving towards a ridiculous and hyprocrite  positions. The League of Decency in full action.

STRADDLE
/ˈstrad(ə)l    /

VERB

[WITH OBJECT]
1Sit or stand with one leg on either side of:
he turned the chair round and straddled it

1.1Place (one’s legs) wide apart:
he shifted his legs, straddling them to keep his balance

1.2 [NO OBJECT] archaic Stand, walk, or sit with one’s legs wide apart:
the colonel straddled in front of the fire

1.3Extend across or be situated on both sides of:
a mountain range straddling the Franco-Swiss border

1.4North American Take up or maintain an equivocal position with regard to (a political issue):
a man who had straddled the issue of taxes

1.5Fire at (a target) with shots or bombs so that they fall short of and beyond it:
the crew of a plane straddled the submarine with depth charges

Source http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/es/de … =straddled

And not one single inappropriate connotation.

Let's don't waste our time in this topic anymore.

Kiss,

Gacela

Actually, writers who are girls don't even need to use makeup. They look pretty anyway only because they write. Wonderbras aren't needed either.

Kiss,

Gacela.

I joined TNBW  two years and a half ago (Wow! Times flies) because, as stated in my bio, I'd been writing since I was kid and decided to get serious and publish. However, I had no idea whether my writing would meet the quality required for publishing, so I needed somebody else to review and critique my work. I'd heard about web sites where literary work could be workshoped, so I checked the web. I find several sites  besides TNBW. There's one, for example, dedicated exclusively for Fantasy, but my genre is YA. Other sites have a lot of requirements because they are designed for professional writers, people who have already published and have a bunch of experience, which discouraged me, an amateur.

I finally found TNBW. Since the very beginning, in the old website, I enrolled as an author (not as a reviewer) because I wanted to publish and have my work reviewed. My main interest was not to read somebody else's work--I could do that very easily perusing the Kindle store and selecting something already published and ready to be read.

I understand perfectly well that I'm no Stephen King or JK Rowling. So, I can't publish a draft and sit down waiting for thousands of readers to stand in line outside the bookstores to buy it. I need to reciprocate and participate in a network of people who help each other. I like TNBW because it's a community of people helping people, and of people interested in people.

As I've already stated, I think the points system is a wise way to encourage reviewing. Some of the sites I studied before joining TNBW used no points. You only publish and wait for somebody to check your work. Of course, in those sites like in TNBW, reciprocating is the magic formula to be reviewed. You read something somebody else published, then that somebody reads yours. While that system sounds pretty good it doesn't encourage reviews. The points system does. For example, I am almost done publishing my first novel ever Amber Eyes. I have to publish the last three chapters, but they are large, so I need a pretty good amount of points (about 12 points each chapter). I am currently reading 4 TNBW novels. In this moment,  I have 0.5 points. Any chapter of any of those stories I'm reading now gives you between 1 and 1.5 points. It's a long way to earning 12. So, today, I was checking what has been published lately, searching for something that would give me en extra bulky amount of points to start with toward the 12 I need. I bumped into Michelle8's Gerbeaud, a  short story in two parts which, besides giving the very interesting amount of 4.58 points if you read and comment both parts, is a wonderful short story worth anybody's time (actually, I'd like to recommend it, it's a wonderful short story).

So, thanks the points system, I found a very valuable literary piece. Hadn't the point system existed, most likely I'd have limited my reviewing to the 4 novels I'm currently reading and would have missed Michelle8's  jewel. Of course, there's people in TNBW who constantly review other author's work for the sake and pleasure of reviewing. However, if there's a way in which the site encourages reviewing, all of us will profit from it because more writers will review our work and we will review more stories from other authors. There have been times in which I've needed half of a point to publish and then I've looked for a poem to review. In the process, I've found masterpieces which otherwise I might have otherwise overlooked. I'm sure it happens the same to many other writers.

All of the above is the benefit of being a Premium Writer, and that's why I want to continue being one. Amber Eyes is my first novel, but I'm already working on the second one, so I will continue here supporting other writers reviewing their work for them to support me. I've been checking some of the material recently published in the non-premium site. What I've seen are few critiques. I believe it is, one, because many are new writers whom have not yet built a network, and, two, because there's little motivation for other writers to review something that is not providing them any points. Of course, a certain writer may review the new writer's work expecting the new writer to reciprocate, but chances are few because the lack of a points system doesn't encourage the non-premium members to reciprocate. In the end, they can publish a full novel for free and only sit down and wait until somebody reviews it--which is one of the reasons I didn't join other workshop sites where no points system existed, I didn't want my work to sit there with nobody reading and reviewing it.

God, what a large post! It's evident I love to write, doesn't it?

Kiss,

Gacela.